Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Morocco is also in the list of "Arab" (many North Africans are not Arab but Berber) states experiencing protests of growing intensity and the avoidable repression by the corresponding dictator. Here we can see a demonstration been violently quelled by police at Dar el Beida (Casablanca):

Update Jun 1: More information is available at Babylon Beyond (an LA Times blog) and Mamfakinch[en/fr/ar]. The demos happened this last Sunday in Casablanca and Sale and were bloodily repressed by the Moroccan police.

Monday, May 30, 2011

When bondholders come asking for their money back, Spaniards can pay them in Monopoly notes, which are as truthful and valuable as what their loans were used for. The infamous biographical dictionary, presented by the equally worthless monarch Juan Carlos Bourbon and Bourbon (also known as Double Bourbon and not just because of the inbreeding), cost the Spanish taxpayers 6.4 million euros.

The dictionary was commissioned to another quite worthless institution: the Royal Academy of History, also paid with public money.

The entry on Francisco Franco, who waged war to the democratic government of Spain for three years and then to the peoples under this state for 36 years more, establishing a fascist government copied almost to the detail from that of Mussolini but with even greater emphasis in licking the boots of the Pope, being a truly fundamentalist tyranny, is described as a brave, intelligent and moderate general, who established a regime that was authoritarian, not totalitarian, and who took part in a coup against a chaotic government in order to restore democratic monarchy.

The entry on former ultra-conservative Prime Minister José María Aznar is also quite controversial. The disaster of the Prestige oil tanker is described merely as an incident used by the opposition to erode his popularity, while the crude manipulation of the truth before the elections that got him kicked off power in 2004, blaming ETA for a Salafist attack, causing the killing of a Basque baker and triggering massive spontaneous demonstrations in the eve of elections is totally skipped.

It seems that it was Aznar who ordered this collection of 25 books, getting some historian friends of him living off the People's money for almost a decade (€600,000 for each of eight years).

The Maquis were not antifascist guerrillas, the resistance or freedom fighters... Not anymore: according this new neofascist biographic dictionary paid by all Spaniards (but commissioned by Aznar) but terrorist and bandits, exactly the terms that would have used Franco.

This jewel is found in the entry of Camilo Alonso Vega, appointed General Director of the military police corps Guardia Civil, upon the Fascist coup. According to this entry, Alonso carried a most important activity against the terrorist-bandit gangs commonly known as maquis.

I was not aware at all but the Portuguese people joined the protest movement initiated (in Europe) in Spain on May 15. They did so more than a week ago, as reported by Esquerda.net[pt], taking the Praça do Rossio (Dew Square, formally Praça de D. Pedro IV) at the center of Lisbon.

Follows video of the camp (interviews in Portuguese):

And Lisbon is just one of several Portuguese cities in this movement.

At this moment there are at least four states in the Euro-Mediterranean region with people taking some of their central squares: Egypt, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Who's next?

For my latest review on other occupations and revolutionary processes, see here.

Some activity also in France

Esquerra.net also reports on the assemblies' movement in France that is trying to emulate the Spanish takeovers of public space. At the moment what they are doing is to debate in open assemblies, notably (but not only) at La Bastille Plaza but have not yet made any permanent camp, as far as I can tell.

From that little big mine of info, I just got this image of Syntagma Square (Athens) tonight:

Let's not forget that Democracy is a Greek word that means People's Power.

And also this one for the assembly at La Bastille, where the People more than two hundred years ago destroyed an emblematic prison of the Ancien Régime, signaling its collapse. It was not easy to complete that process but our World began then:

What?! Are there still states in the World, in Europe itself, where divorce is illegal? It seems so and all them are historically Catholic: Malta until now, the Philippines and Vatican City (a ridiculous fascist residue but without any real population on whom to impose their crazy laws).

Before Malta, the last state to legalize divorce was Chile (2004). I have the rather vivid memory that the first thing that really pulled me apart from Catholicism (I was maybe 11 years old) was their idiotic stand on marriage and divorce: I could not understand how could they force couples to remain married for all their lives when they did not love each other anymore.

And not just love but more importantly: freedom! Why would people be forced against their will?

The People of Malta voted in referendum to legalize divorce. The effective law is expected to be approved by Parliament in few months.

Now Philippines and finally the Vatican to be reincorporated to Italy. We should also get onto considerations on how good or bad are existing divorce laws. In many countries, notably those under the Sharia, the rights of women and men in divorce are not the same.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

With the death of Gil Scott-Heron on Friday there's been a number of little homages around the Net. One of them is from Jews sans frontieres, who choose his song The Revolution Won't Be Televised for their remembrance:

That was the 70s however. Today the Revolution may still not being mostly televised but it's indeed video-taped and published online. Most of the news that follow do have their corresponding video... The Revolution may indeed be filmed in video.

I'm not sure if you prefer terms as widespread unrest or whatever but in my opinion there is a Revolution going on worldwide, even if it is still in its early stages and will need some time and evolution before it can produce fruits.

But there are angry peoples nearly everywhere, challenging nearly everything, and this is only a small sample:

Honduras: the People goes out to welcome Manuel Zelaya (the last elect President with any legitimacy) upon his return. No video but plenty of photos at LINYM[es]:

Peru: massive demonstration against Fujimori and daughter (who runs for the presidency now), demanding punishment for the criminals of his ilk:

Georgia: the protests against that waste of mafioso president Sakhasvili continue even harder in spite of brutal repression. Russia Today (via PO):

Syria: The dictatorship displayed tanks and machine-guns again through several cities. As result, today at least one person was killed and many others injured by such military aggression at Talibiseh, near Homs. Also in Rastan, several people were murdered by the Army along the week. (Source: Gara[es]).

Also Al Jazeera has another version of the same story (in English this time), including a video.

The death toll in the West Asian country has reached by now the thousand victims, it seems, making it the bloodiest revolution (or more precisely: counter-revolutionary repression) in all the region.

Bahrain: demonstrations seem to begin again in the small Arab Emirate (video found at PO):

Yemen: Police killed today at least three more demonstrators and injured maybe 90 others in Taiz, the heart of the Yemeni Revolution, when they demanded the liberation of an arrested comrade (from Gara[es]).

This video (found at PO) shows protesters striking back at riot police and taking their shields and weapons:

Al Jazeera also tells the story of Kamal Sharaf, a cartoonist who dared to denounce the many crimes of the USA and Saleh against the Yemeni People and was therefore arrested and tortured.

There's an interesting remark by an Egyptian citizen: if the USA wants to interfere in Egyptian affairs, they should give Egyptians the right to vote in US elections as well. Very well put.

Russia: more than 40 arrested in Gay Rights demo.

Being different is still a serious issue in many countries, including Russia. The neofascist regime of that country has attacked the protests organized by the LGTB movement of Russia at Alexander Gardens, Manezh Plaza, Tverskaya Street (by the City Hall) and the Red Square, arresting 40.

Not all the arrested are LGTB demonstrators (some seem to be neonazis and Christian fundamentalists) but the police action was directed mostly at quelling the protests for the right of homosexuals.

As I mentioned on Friday, Greeks have taken to occupy Syntagma Plaza, posing an even greater challenge to the global bankster mafia and their vassals in the Greek government. As you may know, the EU-IMF tandem demands the sell off of the Greek state (including even islands!) in order to pay the debt off, all spiced with massive salary, pension and rights reductions.

I am every day more persuaded that they are going to get nothing but a painful punch on their Pinocchio noses.

Including the Twa Pygmies, previously expelled from natural park areas.

The autocratic Tutsi government of Paul Kagame has decided to eradicate all grass roofs in the country... by means of burning them. Lots of people, including the aboriginal Twa, have been that way forced to move into crowded conditions in what the denounce as living as in a refugee camp.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

I would vote this if I could: I find circumcision a very nasty way of harming young boys, a barbaric practice akin to female castration (at least in its milder forms) and a blasphemy against God (if God exists: Nature is its expression, so crippling nature is a blasphemy, a capital sin).

I also find that it decreases the quality of US-made porn (a peeled penis is ugly or at very strange-looking and puts you down). For some reason in parts of the USA it has become common to quasi-castrate boys at birth, even without asking the parents. It seems that the main reason was originally to prevent masturbation. Some figures put the rate of genital violence (circumcision) against newborns at US hospitals around 80%.

There are no particular advantages for this practice. Even if it might slightly help preventing sexual disease transmission, the effect is tiny and cannot justify the damage. The only "advantage" therefore seems to be pseudo-moral: preventively repressing the normal sexuality of young men.

It is therefore a form of castration, much like female circumcision is. Hence it must be eradicated and no superstition must be allowed to stay in between.

In this sense the California provision is clear in not mentioning any exception, being them religious or otherwise. Otherwise it'd be like justifying cannibalism or slavery on religious grounds.

I did not know until today of this new hunger strike of Mapuche prisoners, again for reason of being judged under the infamous anti-terrorist law. They claim to be judged under normal law by a normal impartial tribunal.

The striking prisoners are four and one of them, Ramón Llanquileo, is in serious condition according to physicians.

They were recently moved from the prison of Angol (in the Mapuche Country) to Santiago.

Last year a large number of Mapuche prisoners carried on another hunger strike for the same reasons, achieving their goals. However the anti-terrorist law remains in effect.

The Mapuche nation was de facto independent until 1883, when Chile conquered the country also known as Araucania. Today they struggle for self-rule but specially for the return of the lands robbed to their communities.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Judges, prosecutors and journalists all know that collusion happens every day. As I noted last year:

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme was a conspiracy. The heads of Enron were found guilty of conspiracy, as was the head of Adelphia. Numerous lower-level government officials have been found guilty of conspiracy. See this, this, this, this and this.Time Magazine's financial columnist Justin Fox writes:

Some financial market conspiracies are real ...Most good investigative reporters are conspiracy theorists, by the way.

Indeed, conspiracies are so common that judges are trained to look at conspiracy allegations as just another legal claim to be disproven or proven by the evidence.

Sare Antifaxista reports that the protests across the state of Spain may cross the artificial border soon: a call has been made to take the Plaza of the City Hall of Baiona (Bayonne) since 18:00 today.

The reason is that also in the Basque Country we suffer the impact of this system, while demanding respect for fundamental rights such as the right to a job, to health, to a home, to political participation.

I though that I was the only one pondering that countries like China, India, Brazil... are colonizing themselves, establishing internal differences so parts of the nation (but never all nor even most) can enjoy the privileges of the First World without conquering the rest of the planet themselves.

But I am glad to discover that others have realized the same. Indian journalist Arundathi Roy observed the same phenomenon and her vibrant English explains it much better than I could ever do probably.

"We are living in a country where simultaneously we are trying to make the discourse of democracy sophisticated while we are colonizing ourselves".

She said the most successful "secessionist struggle" in India is "the secession of the middle and upper classes into outer space from where they look down and say ‘what’s our bauxite doing in their mountains, what’s our water doing in their rivers, what’s our timber doing in their forests."

Also a warning on the militarization of alleged democracy, not just in India:

"We are at the moment facing the prospect of a militarized democracy, if that isn’t an oxymoron."

"Isn’t it a generic problem of capitalism?" Mr. Bhaduri.

"It is a generic problem," Ms. Roy concurred.

And on nonviolence under extreme circumstances:

When you have 800 CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force, a paramilitary force deployed to fight country’s internal insurgencies] marching three days into the forest; surrounding a forest village and burning it and raping women, what are the poor supposed to do? Can the hungry go on a hunger strike? Can people who have no money boycott goods? What sort of civil disobedience we are asking them to adhere to?

And on the empty reality of a democracy without social justice:

What if they were to turn around and say to us tell me one democratic institution in this country where I can appeal and where I can get a hearing? I can guarantee you there is no answer to that question today in India.

From outside one might think that municipal and provincial elections are not that important. But for a nation deprived of any other political institutions since many centuries ago, these are truly important elections, much more than those for the Western Basque autonomous parliament and government and a zillion times more important than sending representatives to Madrid or Strasbourg.

Local governments are the ones directly administering urbanism and many matters relevant to daily life. Local governments also provide room or attempt to suffocate grassroots initiatives more than any other institution.

Provinces as semi-sovereign states

But maybe even more important are the provincial parliaments and governments. These institutions have very deep roots, as they were created by invading Castile to appease the conquered Basques by allowing them to retain most of the liberties and laws enjoyed under Navarre. Therefore since the 13th century the provincial governments took upon them taxation, boundaries, territorial militias, civil law and a long etcetera. Only very major issues were competence of Castile (later Spain) and every new monarch at Madrid came here to take oath of respecting Basque freedoms.

Even if many of the self-rule of the Basque provinces was curtailed in the 19th century, key matters like taxation and civil law remain in provincial hands. Only in the four Basque provinces Spain does not collect taxes: the provinces do instead and then pay a negotiated amount to Madrid, known as cupo. Similarly the Western Basque autonomous government has no taxation power of its own and depends on what the provinces agree to provide.

Even the Carlist Wars, Basque uprisings under a dynastic pretext, could only take place because the Basque provinces financed them in their capacity as semi-sovereign states.

For that reason who rules the provinces is particularly important: the government of Vitoria-Gasteiz would not last a year without the active support of the provinces, of which it is a confederative emanation, much as the European Union is of its member states.

Who will rule Gipuzkoa?

Gipuzkoan Provincial Government

And, by simple majority, the left wing independentist coalition Bildu is poised to rule in Gipuzkoa, one of the three Western provinces. Bildu has 22 seats out of 51, 23 if we add the one of Aralar: not enough to grant them automatically the government. But they'd need only three votes more for such absolute majority.

Yet those three extra votes may be hard to come: 4 belong to the Spanish Nationalist ultra-conservative PP (flat chance), 10 to the Spanish Nationalist center-left PSOE and 14 to the Basque Nationalist conservative PNV. In naive theory a lefty coalition would hold a comfortable majority but that the unionist PSOE would even consider a coalition with separatist Bildu is simply unthinkable: the PSOE in the Basque Country is a quasi-fascist force at the service of the Spanish oligarchies, even if they still pretend to be left-wing for the gallery. They are much like Labor Zionism in Palestine: a force of evil and imperialism under a class pretext.

So the only chances that Bildu has to rule in Gipuzkoa, where it has a clear popular mandate, come from the Basque Nationalist Right: the PNV. But these are already showing signs of paying attention to the siren songs of the Unionist bloc.

Something that they have already argued is that they cannot agree with the progressive fiscal and social policies promoted by Bildu in their electoral program. The president of the party, I. Urkullu, has already dismissed the idea that the simple majority list should vote and is asking something in return for their support. In the case of Bildu, they ask for watering down their socialist program.

Actually, with the extreme polarization of Basque politics, the not-so-strong Basque Nationalist Party is, as usual, in the strongest possible position: they may have only won in Biscay (where they still need some support however) but, barring the most unlikely Bildu-PSOE coalition, they hold the key to the governments of all three Western Provinces.

López asked for wall against Bildu

And considering how in agreement both unionist parties are about preventing Bildu from ruling, in spite of the strong popular mandate, the PNV can even hope for all three provincial governments, with just minor concessions. However it needs to be an ample front: in the past the PNV has ruled with the PSOE more than once but it has never done so with the Spanish Tories of the PP, typically considered the heirs of Franco and most hostile to Basque demands, not in the provinces at least.

The one time it did in municipal governments they triggered a major fracture of the party. It is for that kind of treachery that the PNV is so weak in Gipuzkoa and almost non-existent in Navarre.

But this time they can really take it all, save for the dignity: they can simply tell PP and PSOE: we want the three provincial governments and a return to the government in Vitoria-Gasteiz, (possibly via early elections). Else, we'll support Bildu in Gipuzkoa in exchange for their support in Araba.

Whatever the case, as the PSOE is not (and has never been) true to its alleged class identity, the negotiating position of the PNV is terribly strong.

What about Navarre?

Bildu announced support for government of the Left in Pamplona

I know the answer because it has happened before: the PSOE could easily get the support of Bildu and Aralar and displace the unionist conservative Right from the government at Pamplona. But they won't: they will support UPN for state reasons and that's all.

But it would be interesting for a change that the Spanish Unionist Left prioritized their class identity and not their ethnic loyalties. If so, we could expect left-wing governments in both Navarre and Gipuzkoa and even a good chance of grabbing the Western Basque autonomous government after due democratic elections.

However, as Zaldi Eroa puts it today at Berria, making Social-Democrat leader and irregular Lehendakari, López: How cold it is... within the Spanish Constitution!

The couple formed by José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and María do Espírito Santo were murdered yesterday at an ambush in the state of Pará. Ribeiro da Silva was notable for his defense of the rainforest and struggle against illegal logging. He had received many death threats and even forecast his own murder but police never protected him.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, notable for her developist policies and relative disdain of environmentalism has now reacted and sent the federal police to investigate. A bit too little and a bit too late, right?

The simplest method is to add up the provincial delegates (each province has 51 of them, except Navarre that has 50, but I reapportioned and CDN got 1), forming a "super parliament" with 204 representatives. The rule that each province has the same representation (federative concept) is widely accepted and in effect in the Western Basque Parliament already.

It would produce:

Bildu: 52 seats

EAJ-PNV: 49 seats

PSOE: 37 seats

PP: 32 seats

UPN: 19 seats

Aralar/NaBai: 9 seats

IU: 5 seats

CDN 1 seat

The nominal ideological distribution would be as follow:

Separatists: 110; Unionists: 89; Federalists: 5Left: 103; Right: 101

However, because of the relative pragmatism (centrism) of the unionist left (PSOE) and separatist right (PNV), these two blocs have historically tended to join forces in an unholy alliance for the preservation of the status quo. At least it has been that way in the Western Basque Country. All left or all separatist alliances have been typically taboo.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Absorbed by other events and also because the new information arriving has only confirmed the worst expectations discussed here earlier, I have not commented on Fukushima these last days. However the problem is anything but gone: it is in fact revealing all its worst as a bud of death flowering.

Follow most important snippets from Energy News, which is the best resource I know for instant news on this matter. I've read them all but can't get to analyze them.

The following map indicates the leading list in every Southern Basque municipality. Notice that even if often the leading list also has a local majority of councilors and maybe even a clear majority of votes, this is not necessarily the case. For details on each town, check the quite complete interactive list at Gara.

Click to expand

The two anomalous cases are an exact tie and a case where the null votes were 40%, many more than the leading list, what suggests some legal issue.

Independent lists, so dominant in much of Navarre, are surely a good idea for small towns but they provide little information to us visually.

In any case, it is clear that the Unionist forces are extremely weak in Gipuzkoa, Biscay, much of Araba and NW Navarre. On the other side, Southern Navarre is pretty much in their hands.

Patxi "Napoleon" López was appointed by Spain, by means of declaring illegal one of the major political Basque parties, as the first and only unelected President (Lehendakari) of the Western Basque Autonomous Community.

He led "left" party but ruled with the support of the far right. All for the good of the nation... another nation than the one he was born in, an invader nation: Spain.

But once democracy was, even if maybe briefly, restored he had to face the facts: it is cold in Siberia-Gasteiz... but this winter is colder than usual.

It is hard to see how he can pretend to keep the farce, the illusory pretense of being a democratically elect and legitimate Lehendakari, and remain ruling after the results of yesterday, which not only ratified with pluses the Basque Nationalist options, notably the Left one, but also showed that his party has suffered a massive erosion as result of such fascist and right-wing policies (they are more cheapskate with social aids than even the Basque Nationalist Right but they waste the money in Spanish banners instead).

The half-dignified thing to do, and there will be social pressure for that to happen, would be to call elections in the Western Basque Country and allow all options to run fairly...

Monday, May 23, 2011

The media (and some pseudo-revolutionaries against revolutions) are emphasizing the defeat of PSOE and the victory of PP in Spanish elections. This we all knew it would happen and is only the fault of the PSOE which has not exerted left-wing policies almost ever in three decades of political hegemony in Spain.

This is like the defeat of Blair/Brown: nobody should really be bothered because they are class traitors and we deserve better, a lot better.

But there is another view to things. As mentioned earlier and emphasized by the protesters at Puerta del Sol, there is one single party, popularly known as PPSOE. This single twin party has lost almost one million votes: from 15.676.940 votes in 2007 to 14.750.118 in 2011 (same kind of elections).

Simultaneously the votes to other options, together with blank and null votes has increased in 1.6 millions.

After considering abstention, the PPSOE single party gathers only 43.26% of potential votes state-wide. Yet, thanks to the electoral system, they get maybe 80 or 90% of the institutional representation.

This is why electoral reform is a key demand of demonstrators: currently the electoral law strongly favors bipartidism, that is: single twin-party dictatorship. Particularly it gives undue representation to small rural provinces lacking personality, where no third party can ever be elected (unless it has a very strong local presence). That way the caciques in Ávila, Ourense or Albacete rule like true feudal lords the politics of the whole state, without any alternative, aided by the corporate media.

The electoral law for local and regional elections similarly favors largest parties, making the elections a corporate theater between two almost indifferent political parties. Only the flavor varies: one tastes to pseudo-proletarian tomato salad and the other to rancid catholic wine. But they have the same contents: 100% carcinogenic artificial flavors and colorants.

The United Arab Emirates and Xe Inc. (former Blackwater) have formed a "joint venture" with the name Reflex Responses to create a secret bataillon of with, initially, some 800 mercenaries hired from South Africa, Colombia and other countries that will intervene through the region against protesters and revolutionary movements.

The mercenary army, once tested in a real action, will be paid by the Abu Dhabi tryanny to help thwart the Arab Revolution. The mercenaries are trained by instructors from NATO armies and secret services.

The two names in this mercenary project are: Mohamed bin Zayed, heir apparent to emirate and trainee by the British Army and trusted puppet of the Pentagon, and Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, Xe and now Reflex Responses.

Prince claims to be libertarian (i.e. ultra-liberal), what is surely a convenient ideology to create a ghost mercenary army that operates through the world. It would seem less convenient to justify para-military repression of pro-democracy protesters... but what these thugs understand by "freedom" is just freedom for themselves to become rich, the freedom of the poor, of the peoples of the World is not their concern, it seems.

Mafiosi in other words. The only true libertarianism is libertarian communism, best known as Anarchism.

The German Army has acknowledged that they willingly shot against the Afghans (briefly mentioned four days ago) protesting last Wednesday at Taloqan (Talhar province) who protested against the murder of other four people (two women included) by US forces earlier that week.

Until today the Bundeswehr had denied any responsibility on the deaths, which was presented as civilian-initiated violence by AP. They killed at least four protesters but earlier news spoke of no less than 12 victims of occupation violence.